Darby, Abraham

Darby, Abraham I (1678-1717) was born in Staffordshire he patented sand casting in 1708 and invented coke... 

Historically, the production of coke from coal resulted from the pressures exerted by environmental and economic forces. In the late 1500s, demand for wood in England began to surpass supply. At that time, wood was converted into charcoal for use as a reductant of iron ore by the burgeoning metallurgical industries. By 1710, Abraham Darby of Coalbrookdale m Shropshire, England, commercialized the production of pig iron by utilizing the coke from coal... 

In spite of the tendency to rust, iron either alone or as reinforcement in concrete has been the basis of civil engineering projects since the world s first iron bridge was constructed over River Severn at Coalbrookdale in England by Abraham Darby in 1780. Many wrought iron bridges performed well with modest but regular maintenance. 

In the early eighteenth century the demand for coal escalated when English iron founders John Wilkinson and Abraham Darby used coal, in the form of coke, to manufacture iron. An almost insatiable demand for coal was created by successive metallurgical and engineering developments, most notably the invention of the coal-burning steam engine by Scottish mechanical engineer James Watt in 1769. 

Many notable innovators have contributed to the growth of advanced ceramics. In 1709, Abraham Darby, a British brass worker and key player in the Industrial Revolution, hrst developed a smelting process for producing pig iron using coke instead of wood as fuel. Coke is now widely used in the produc-rion of carbide ceramics. In 1888, Austrian chemist... 

Iron ore smelting with coke (Abraham Darby) Darby develops a method of smelting iron ore by using coke, rather than charcoal, which at the time was becoming scarce. Coke is made by heating coal and driving off the volatiles (which can be captured and used). 

Cast-iron bridge Abraham Darby III and John Wilkinson build the hrst cast-iron bridge in England. 

In 1784, Henry Cort discovered that it was possible to stir small "pigs" or puddles of iron to mix the oxide forming on the surface so that it could combine with the excess carbon, a process called puddling. This process eliminated the expensive process of hammering the iron to remove the excess carbon, which made good iron more affordable and, with the invention of the blast furnace by Abraham Darby, became the forerunner of modem steel making. 

Abraham Darby produced pig iron with coke in 1709, but widespread replacement of charcoal came only after 1750 see Harris, J. R. 1988. The British Iron Industry 1700-1850. London Macmillan. Beehive ovens are described in detail in Porter (27), pp. 106-110. Byproduct recovery ovens are rectangular chambers built in rows and interspersed with heating flues (coke-oven gas is the most convenient heat source). Coal is charged through their tops, ovens are sealed, and the processed fuel is pushed out after sixteen to twenty hours of coking. Tar and phenols are other usable by-products. 

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